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USING DESIGN THINKING TO IMPROVE HEALTHCARE APPS

Blog

Tue Jan 31, 2017

If you were asked to determine a theme for healthcare today, chances are you would identify something along the lines of change, reform, or growth. It seems that most discussions related to healthcare seem to focus on how it can be expanded and improved. How can we make healthcare more cost effective, more efficient, and most of all, more useful for patients?

While there are as many different ideas about how to approach change in healthcare as there are patients, one area that shows a great deal of promise is mobile apps. Apps represent an opportunity to find new and better ways of providing care; they can also be powerful tools for both providers and patients in reaching the goals of the modern healthcare landscape.

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With great opportunity, though, comes great challenge, and the realm of healthcare app strategy and development is no exception. Developing a healthcare app presents a number of challenges that aren’t present in the development of other apps. For instance, medical and health apps face greater scrutiny in terms of regulatory compliance and data protection.

There are certainly a number of approaches that developers can take to overcome these challenges, but one method that consistently garners results is design thinking.

What Is Design Thinking?

All too often, healthcare app designers (and truthfully, developers in all industries) develop solutions that only solve part of the problem. It’s only natural; in healthcare in particular, there are generally so many stakeholders, each with their own priorities, that their focus naturally shifts to the areas that they can fix.

At the same time, many medical app companies face the problem of having so many options of how they can address problems or improve a service that they become distracted, and focus on features that don’t actually bring any value to the customer. In either case, the final product is rarely what one might consider a success, and doesn’t meet everyone’s needs.

By using a design thinking approach, though, developers have a more structured process that allows for the discovery of real solutions that are both innovative and useful. Design thinking is a human-centered approach, one that is driven by a thorough understanding of what the customer needs and wants, how they can and will use a product, their preferences, and what they expect in terms product packaging, delivery, and support.

Instead of treating user experience as an afterthought, and seeking feedback only as the solution is in the rollout stage, design thinking puts the user front and center from the start, and incorporates a continuous feedback loop to ensure that the final product actually solves the problem it is intended to solve.

Design thinking can best be described as a five-stage process. While the terminology may vary, the general principles do not. The typical process follows this pattern:

Learn

Define

Ideate

Prototype or Build

Refine

Learn. Sometimes referred to as empathizing, learning is the first step in design thinking. In this stage, you seek to gain understanding of user or customer needs, and the “why” of their actions. At this point, you observe your customers, listen to their needs and problems, and watch how they use existing solutions.

Define. In this stage, you use the knowledge you’ve gained in the Learn phase to define the problem. A solution is only as good as the definition of the problem, and in this stage you define both the problem and solution requirements. You might create user personas in this phase, or develop different scenarios to get a better sense of the problem.

Ideate. Only after you have learned and defined the problem can you begin to develop solutions. In this phase, you look beyond the obvious solutions to find new and innovative ideas. This is when you bring in the technical team, who can bring a fresh perspective to the problem and begin experimenting with solutions.

At this point, the priority isn’t whether or not a solution will actually work — in fact, the wilder the ideas, the better. As time goes on, the team narrows these ideas down to the most promising, but for now, it’s time to be creative.

Prototype. This is the testing phase, in which the most promising ideas are brought to life as prototypes. The goal here isn’t perfection, but rather the opposite: to determine which ideas will not work, and make changes and refinements that will improve others. Some call the products created at this point the “minimum viable product,” which is a fancy way of saying that the app is bare bones, as a means of testing to see if it will work as expected, and if it works how your customers want it to.

Refine. Finally, the last stage of design thinking is refinement. At this point, you gather feedback on the prototypes and make changes as needed. The building and refining stages take the longest, but they are the most crucial. As you move through the prototypes, you can identify and correct issues, eventually coming up with a viable finished product.

Design thinking operates under the assumption that you will not get your app right the first time — and that you shouldn’t get your app right the first time. It also requires a great deal of collaboration and teamwork. However, the payoff is a better finished product that actually meets your customers’ needs, and better aligns with the goal of improving healthcare.

To connect with one of PointClear Solutions’ technology experts or to learn more about our digital strategy, design, development, and/or management services, Contact Us. (And don’t forget to follow us on LinkedIn for more great content!)

DAVID KARABINOS

CEO, PRESIDENT & BOARD CHAIRMAN

As President and CEO of PointClear Solutions, David works with the board and executive team driving the vision and strategies of the company. His 36+ years of technology and business experience have helped PointClear achieve exceptional and steady growth since he joined the company in 2010. David honed his skills during the first 18 years of his career in Fortune 500 companies. Since then he has used those skills to create and build numerous companies including eHealthClaim, EquaTerra, Halo Monitoring, American Bank of Huntsville, Harvest Business Advisors and PointClear Solutions. David earned a BS in Business Management/Finance from the University of Alabama Birmingham.

BLAINE ANDERSON

BOARD DIRECTOR, FOUNDER

Blaine co-founded PointClear in 2006 and has been heavily involved in all aspects of the company as it has grown from a startup to a market leader. Blaine started his career at NASA and spent 17 years there studying vibration and acoustic effects in the Space Station and the Space Shuttle programs. Prior to PointClear, Blaine was involved at startups in the healthcare and software development areas, including eHealthClaim and ComFrame. Blaine earned an engineering degree from Auburn University, and currently serves as a mentor at numerous incubators in the Nashville area.

Daren McCormick

COO, EVP & BOARD DIRECTOR

As Chief Operating Officer, Daren works closely with the company’s leadership to guide and direct the day-to-day operations of the company. For over 25 years, Daren has served in progressively more responsible leadership positions across a wide range of privately held and publicly traded companies, including “Fortune” companies. Daren has dedicated his career to the delivery of creative solutions in the healthcare information technology marketplace. Daren holds a degree in Computer Science with a concentration in Software Engineering.

NEAL EVANS, PhD

BOARD DIRECTOR, FOUNDER

Neal Evans, PhD., is both a founder and board member at PointClear Solutions. His interests include artificial intelligence, computational physics, and evolutionary algorithms. His contributions range from the theoretical to the practical, including advances in machine learning, physics, and theoretical optics, and application of these concepts to health informatics. He is a member of the American Physical Society (APS), the Optical Society of America (OSA), and the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE). He has published in scientific journals and books. Neal is a former board member of the A.G. Gaston Boys & Girls Club and volunteers for Carpenter’s Hands in Birmingham, Alabama.

LEE FARABAUGH

BOARD DIRECTOR, FOUNDER

Lee Farabaugh is both a member of the Board of Directors and founder of PointClear Solutions. She is a senior technology design, operations, and innovation expert, with more than a decade of experience in financial technology (fintech) and healthcare IT. Currently, Lee is serving as chief operating officer of Core10, a company that she also co-founded. Lee holds a bachelor’s degree in studio art from Wake Forest University, a master’s degree in human-computer interaction from Georgia Tech, and a master’s degree in health informatics from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where she is an adjunct instructor. Before joining PointClear in 2006, she was a usability engineer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

SHAWN EWING

VICE PRESIDENT OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT

As Vice President of Project Management, Shawn oversees a team of project managers to ensure the successful delivery of client’s software development engagements. Shawn is a motivated, personable business professional with over 12 years of product and project management experience. Since joining PointClear Solutions in 2011, he has applied his project management skills to numerous projects spanning several months to multi-year engagements. He is accomplished in project management methodologies, web and mobile development projects, project planning, team building and communication. Shawn earned a BS in Education from Missouri State University and is a Certified Scrum Master (CSM).

THADD SELDEN

PRINCIPAL ARCHITECT

As a Principal Architect, Thadd helps PointClear Solutions design innovative and scalable web applications and mobile app back-ends. Thadd has a degree in Physics and Math and started his career in defense. After spending 7 years building ground control systems for unmanned systems, first for the Navy and later for Raytheon, Thadd moved on to work on web technologies. He has been using Ruby on Rails since its infancy and has helped launch dozens of successful web and mobile projects.

TOMMY WHITE

VICE PRESIDENT, SOLUTIONS MANAGEMENT

For more than 20 years, technology has been at the center of Tommy White’s career. Across multiple industries, including industrial automation, process control, banking, retail, and healthcare, he has used this central theme to make great ideas a reality. Among the leading international organizations with which Tommy has worked are Siemens, BBVA, and InfluenceHealth. Leaning on degrees in both computer science and psychology, he fully understands that solutions are not independent topics, but rather a choreographed dance between business, technologies, and end users.

Tommy has been a part of the PointClear Solutions team since early 2016 and serves as Vice President, Solutions Management. He is based out of the Birmingham, Alabama, office and his team is responsible for establishing the strategic services that PointClear clients and partners take advantage of for long-term planning, roadmap definition, and execution. PointClear’s proven Solutions process is both a core driver for success, and an accelerator for any multi-phase, multi-platform solutions.

SHAWN FARRAR

SOLUTIONS DIRECTOR

Solutions Director Shawn Farrar joined PointClear Solutions in 2011 and offers expertise in enterprise and business strategy, project management, product management, business analysis, and vendor management. Previously, he served as a global project manager at Apple and a manager, cloud systems, at Hertz Global Holdings. Shawn holds a Bachelor of Science degree in human factors from the University of Illinois and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in health informatics from Northwestern University.

MICHAEL ATKINS

VICE PRESIDENT, TECHNICAL SERVICES

Michael Atkins joined PointClear Solutions in 2017 and is responsible for overseeing all aspects of the company’s technical services functions, including management of a team of architects and engineers.

Before joining PointClear, Michael spent several years with Change Healthcare, where he served as the company’s director of Applications Development, Engagement Solutions. Prior to this, he was a director of Healthcare Clinical Solutions Development with Walgreens.

Michael holds a BPA in computer science and accounting from Mississippi State University.

CHRIS HAMMACK

VICE PRESIDENT, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

Chris Hammack brings to the PointClear Solutions team more than 20 years of healthcare industry experience. A seasoned sales and business development leader, he most recently served Greenway Health as a regional vice president. He offers expertise in population health and revenue cycle operations, among other areas of healthcare.

Chris holds a Bachelor of Science degree in marketing from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He is also a Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert (MCSE) and holds various other networking, management, and sales certifications, including one from the Sandler sales training program.

CHRIS KARABINOS

VICE PRESIDENT, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

Chris Karabinos has been with PointClear Solutions since 2011, serving in various business development positions, including sales, marketing and partnership development. As vice president of Business Development, he has helped develop PointClear’s business in the healthcare technology market nationally, as well as in the Southeast United States.

Previously, Chris served eHealthClaim, Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, and ChoicePoint. He is very active in the HIT community in Georgia, serving on the boards of TAG-Health, Health 2.0 Atlanta and Kennesaw State University’s Healthcare Management & Informatics School. Chris has also served on the HIT Leadership Summit’s Steering Committee since 2012. Chris holds a Bachelor of Science degree in industrial engineering from Auburn University. He resides in Atlanta, Georgia.